About Me

Hi, I’m Alex.

I build communities, started one of the longest running coworking communities in the world, write a crapload of words every day, tweet a little too much, coach people to be the best version of themselves possible, can't stop learning new things, and do my very best not to take myself too seriously.

I have one goal: to fill the world with truly excellent collaborators so we can all work together, better.

Because let's be honest...most of us aren't very good at it.

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Please Help, Philadelphia Gas Works

I’ve been a leaseholder of commercial property for over 3 years now, and of all of the vendors that service our business, Philadelphia Gas Worksis the worst.

When we moved into our current office space in May of 2009, one of the tasks given to us by our landlords was to move the 2 gas accounts into our business name. Since I’d transferred electric, cable, and internet services a bunch of times, I didn’t think that this could possibly be a huge deal.

Apparently, I was wrong. Today, November 1st of 2010, we STILL have not been able to successfully move our commercial gas account from our landlord’s name into our business name. We’ve faxed in account change forms multiple times, but with no verification, we never know if we’ve been successful until some time later when our landlord sends us more delinquent invoices.

We’ve even attempted visiting the 11th and Chestnut offices to get help in person, and to date, not a single person has been the even remotely helpful.

The website lacks ANY kind of payment or account utility. PGW, I understand that you’re a commodity utility and everybody needs you, but this is inexcusable in 2010.

Your phone service for commercial customers sends them into a voicemail box without even a chance of waiting on the line to talk to a human being. That’s only marginally better than getting a busy signal.

When calling to get phone service, if I cheat to get an operator and explain that I am trying to get help and do NOT want to be transferred to commercial service because I will only get a voicemail box, I get transferred without warning anyway.

You’ve wasted countless hours of my, my team’s, and my landlords time. You’ve made me look like a fool to our landlords, who are understandably frustrated with us having outstanding balances on accounts still in their name.

I’m fed up. I understand that you have an entire city to serve and I’m only one voice, but I cannot understand how this is acceptable. Apparently I’m not the only one.

Update: at 3:30pm today, I spoke with a representative who I asked very specifically, “what items do we need to provide if we send one of our team members down to your office”. I was assured there were ONLY 3 items needed:

A completed commercial application

A copy of our current lease

Our tax ID number

For that last item, I asked SPECIFICALLY if we needed our business licenses or any other official documents, or just the tax ID number. She assured me that it was just the tax ID number.

Our office manager arrived 30 minutes later with all three items, only to leave 2 hours later without resolution because he was told we also needed our official tax ID letter and our fictitious designation from the state.

WE WOULD HAVE BROUGHT THEM IF WE WERE TOLD THEY WERE NEEDED WHEN WE EXPLICITLY ASKED.

Now he will need to return, and waste another unknown number of hours in hopes of resolution.

Maybe you just need to rename yourselves to “Philadelphia Gas Never Works”, since as far as I can tell, that’d be more accurate. I cannot believe that your business tagline is “Safe. Reliable. Service”. It’s stunning. I’ve never seen it be SO HARD to pay a company money.

If you factor in everybody’s wasted time, the gas bills we’re trying to pay are now costing us multiple times their face amount in wasted resources.

Maybe somebody out there can help me, somebody who works at PGW, or maybe just some caring soul (since I’m pretty sure PGW doesn’t employ any of those).

I have 2 accounts currently in Miles & Generalis name for 20 N 3rd St, Philadelphia PA, 19106. We need them changed into the business name “Independents Hall LLC”.

Account #0934577806 has an outstanding balance of $353.64.
Account #0416247225 has an outstanding balance of $551.76.

All I want to do is change those accounts into our business name, pay the outstanding balance, and set up a recurring billpay so that our account is no longer an issue.